Sanne Hermans MA

PhD candidate

E-mail: sanne.hermans@uantwerpen.be

Area(s) of interest: Digital Humanities, Dutch History, European History, Oral History & Life Writing, Urban History, War & Conflict

Cohort/Start PhD: 2021-2022

Future Thinking and Actions in the Early Modern Low Countries, 1572-1674

University of Antwerp
Supervisor(s): dr. Jeroen Puttevils
Project start date: November 2020 (4 years)

In her study, Sanne compares two separate moments of crisis in the history of the early modern Low Countries in order to examine how such situations influenced individual future thinking. She uses digital tools to trace and analyse statements about the future in various letters written between 1584-1609 and 1672-1674. Her sources consist of Dutch merchant correspondences including those of well-known Antwerp families, such as Van der Meulen, Thijs, and Della Faille, some of whose members left the city during the Siege and Fall of Antwerp (1584-1585), resulting in a diaspora in the Northern provinces and various German cities. Among other things, she wants to research the way these Protestants in exile communicate about the future, focusing on the extent to which nostalgic sentiments colour their image of the time-to-come and impact their plans.